Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Saturday 11 July 1868, page 5


News of the Week.

IT will be satisfactory to the public to learn that, in all probability, a chance will be afforded to answer letters received by the incoming mail. The outgoing mail will not close till 8 o'clock on

Monday morning for newspapers, and will be open till half-past 10 o'clock for ordinary letters, for registered letters and money-orders it will close half an hour earlier. The City of Brisbane will take the mail/and up to 1 o'clock on Mon day, the time at which she is advertised to leave, a late-fee mail will be open on board. The communication from His Excellency Sir George Bowen (o the trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School, which appears in another column, will be read with general satisfaction. That Sir George Bowen cherishes kind remem brances of Queensland there seems to be no reason to doubt, and the manner in which he has chosen to show his goodwill towards the colony is creditable to him, and mmt be grati fying to all who are interested in the success of our educational institutions. We are sure that the " Bowen Prizes 1' will be earnestly contended for, proudly won, and highly prized. The usual Ozley monthly meeting was held on Monday evening, July 6. Want of space compels us to hold over a full report of the proceedings, including an interesting address by Mr. Gray. Mb. Coxen, who is really indefatigable in his efforts to throw light upon the grape vine disease, reads a paper this day week (July 18) before the E. M. Farmers' Association, which meets in the Town Hall, Brisbane, at 2 p.m. In connection with the vine disease, a gentle man who has imported from France a pair of sulphuring bellows for dressing diseased vines, has left them at the seed warehouse of Mr. Hockings, Brisbane, where they are to be seen. The bellows are simply constructed, so there is now a prospect of all who wish being supplied with this useful contrivance. The Secretary of the Brisbane Hospital begs to acknowledge, with thanks, the receipt of £5 from Captain Williams, steamer Bee. Dona tions of old linen or calico will be thankfully received and gratefully acknowledged. The following is. a report of the state of the hospital to date : —ln-door patient remaining last week, 52; received during the week ending July 2, 1868, 10 ; discharged, 7; died, 1; remaining in hospital, 58 ; out-door patients receiving medical treatment, 45. In a late number of the Empire, of Sydney, the death is announced of a Mrs. Fanny Jane Lolley, aged 100 years and three months. i The Cumberland Hotel, at South Brisbane, was destroyed by fire early on the morning of July 5, this being the third disaster of that nature that has occurred within a few days. The build ing in question was a large two-storied wooden house, containing ten rooms, and had, up to the first day of the present month, been occu pied as an hotel by its owner, Mr. Thomas Stabler. The license, which expired with the half-year, was not renewed, and Mr. Stabler removed to an adjacent house, leaving all his furniture, except a bedstead, in the hotel, which at the time of the fire was unoccupied. The first alarm of fire was given about half past 3 o'clock in the morning, when the flames were seen in one of the rooms at the back of the house. The building being very inflammable, and a breeze blowing at the time, the flames quickly spread, and had enveloped the whole house before the few persons at hand could give any effective assistance. The fire-bell was rung a few minutes before 4 o'clock, and a number of the Volunteer Fire Brigade under Superin tendent Watts, and of the police, were soon on the spot, but, of course, their cervices were merely confined to preventing the extension qf the fire to the adjacent buildings. Their efforts were successful, and a back kitchen on the premises was saved, nothing of the hotel itself, however, being left standing but the brick chim neys. The house was insured in the Imperial Insurance Company for £400, and, we under stand, the furniture was insured for another £100. The Commercial Bank had a lien on the building for an amount which we could not ascertain. The origin of the fire is at present unknown. A FOOTBALL match will be played this afternoon, at the Queen's Park, between the Police and Brisbane Football Club. The representatives of the "force" have been practising for the last week, and have improved considerably in their style of play. It is expected that the match will be very exciting, as the weight of the police will counterbalance, to some extent, the superior activity of their opponents. Another sample of the fair play Queens land gets in the neighboring colonies will be found in the following paragraph, which we clip from the Qrey River Argus : —" Mr. Gilles, of the firm of Carey and Gilles, of Hokitika, who has just returned from Queensland, in the firm's 6teamer Star of the South, gives a very deplorable account of the condition of the miners there. The alluvial diggings in the Maryborough district are almost completely worked out, and thousands of men are rushing about the country from place to place wherjver the rumor of gold is heard. The quartz reefs are idle, there being no machinery for crushing, and no probability of there being any for some considerable time. At the time the Star of the South left a rush had set in to the Cape River diggings, to the north of Cleveland Bay, and thousands of men were flocking thither. The accounts from that place were not very favorable as regards the diggings, and the extreme un healthiness of the climate and scarcity of water had produced a fearful amount of mortality amongst the miners, upwards of seventy out of some five or six hundred have died from fever and ague or sunstroke. Mr. Gilles states that all the West Coast hands are anxious to get back, but they have not the means. The Star of the South could have been crammed with return passengers if she would have taken them at the rate offered. A good many are knocking about Sydney and other parts of New South Wales." • It has often been a subject of remark in Brisbane that while the river and some parts of the bay abound with delicious mullet, bream, and other choice varieties of fish, and the weather for the most part of the year prevents their being brought to the would-be consumer anything like " fresh," yet nothing like a sys tematic attempt has ever been made to bring them to market in any other form. If we want dried fish, we are still compelled to purchase the compound of salted bones and tough, taste less skin, which is imported from Europe under the name of " salt fish," except, indeed, on rare occasions, when a hawker offish, finding the same slack, turns to and dries what remains in his basket after he has been " his rounds." We are glad to announce, therefore, that Mr. G. Lynch, of this city, has commenced the business of curing fish, so that a supply may always be de- | pended upon. Judging from the samples to hand, a couple of mullet perfectly cured and of excellent flavor, a large demand may be antici pated. As will be seen by advertisement in another page, Mr. Dunn, wholesale fruiterer, Mary-street, has been appointed Brisbane agent. Holloway's Pills. —A Certain Cttre for Headaches, Bile, Loss of Appetite, and Lowness of Spirits.—These plls can be taken without danger from wet or c«d, and require no interruption fro*n businebl or pleasure. They act mildly on oa/BViowels, the stomach, and promote a heawhyl action of the liver, whereby they purif r the blood, cleanse the skin, brace the nerves, a id/Invigorate the whole system. They effect a tWly wonrlerful change in a debilitated constitution, as they create a healthy appetite, correct indigestion, remor* bile, giddiness, headaches, and palpttationof the heart. Plain directions for the mse of this medicine, at once so mild and efficacious, are I affixed to eaoh box. \

A notice to correspondents that we will not publish any letters which are not, for our pri vate information, accompanied by the writers' I real names, appears every day in our columns. Notwithstanding this, letters on all sorts of subjects are frequently sent to us without the names of the writers, and the latter are no doubt indignant or puzzled at the non-appear ance of their communications. This, however, is a rule from which we cannot depart, and such persons have themselves only to blame. From the returns to hand of the result of the ; polling of the principal polling places in the Leichhardt, it would seem that Mr. A. Hodgson stands a very good chance of being returned as the member for that electorate. At all events, to use a sporting phrase, he is now " first favorite." The returns are as follows:—

i The polling places from which no returrs have yet been received are Abinia Downs, Euroomb a Mount Hutton, Inglewood, Knebworth, Junc tion Inn, Gainsford, and Nulalbin. A little excitement was created in Queen street on the morning of July 6 by a runaway horse and cart. The animal bolted with his dray from Messrs. Barker and Co.'s store in Eagle street, down to Edward-street, then turned up Queen-street, and was checked finally near the Union Hotel, in Fortitude Valley. The most singular thing is that the horse galloped along some of the footpaths, but did not touch any thing, and, when pulled up, neither horse nor cart were at all injured. • A cobbbspondent, signing himself "Justice," writes from Tingalpa, complaining of great delay in the delivery of his letters, and of other letters which he hears were written to him never coming to hand at all. He says, a letter dated 13th of June, was detained at the Tingalpa office for twelve days, when the keeper of the post office there had almost hourly opportuni ties of informing him of the fact of a letter being there for him, News has been received by the Panama mail of the death of Mr. Colin John Mackenzie, brother of Sir Evan Mackenzie, Bart., and one of the pioneer squatters of Queensland. Many years ago Mr. Mackenzie took up Kilcoy Station, of which he was the first Crown tenant. He afterwards became proprietor of Warra Warra Station, on the Downs, which he ulti mately gave up, and returned to Scotland. He was an energetic, clever man, and was well known to the old residents of this district, and generally liked. Mb. Thatcheb's "Life on the Gold-field," nightly set forth at the Victoria theatre, is, without'question, one of the most complete and enjoyable entertainments which have been pre sented to a Brisbane audience for a long time past, and it is satisfactory to see that it is ap preciated as it deserves. Everybody seems well satisfied at the conclusion. The programme is frequently altered, and new local songs intro duced, which take immensely. " The Bush to Gympie " was especially apropos. Mb. Willett, lessee of the Victoria Theatre, is making an effort to provide for the Brisbane public such a treat as they have seldom enjoyed here. He proposes to bring all the leading vocalists of the Lyster Opera Company to Bris bane to give a series of performances, if he is guaranteed a sum of £500. This he expects to be able to obtain by the sale of one hundred tickets at £5 each, which will admit two persons to the reserved seats at each performance, and which will bo transferable. A good many tickets have been taken up, and we have little doubt that Mr. Willett's spirited attempt will be suc cessful. An old Brisbane favorite, Rogers, the come dian, is turning up in Adelaide, the trump we always thought him. Mr. Coppin is producing several of Boucicault's dramas there at present in excellent style, and in a critique of the " Flying Scud," in the Adelaide Observer, we find the following:—" The cast proper was good in almost every point. In Nat Gosling Mr. Rogers produced an entirely new character, and placed it among his very best. He contrived to make himself loos a horsey man and to re tain his thorough English honesty all the while. Up to all the tricks, both of the stable and of the turf, he used his experience to counteract them and to save their intended victims. His sell of the four legs was so scientifically done that people could see through it and yet appre ciate its skill. In his hands the principle of circumventing knavery by sheer straightforward ness was not romance, but a matter of business. His sporting slang was very expressive and graphic without trenching in the slightest on vulgarity. The description of the race—quite a unique effort in stage declamation—was so strikingly natural that the audience gave it a spontaneous encore." Mr. Rogers has had a benefit, and we are glad to say a " bumper house." TgE man Richards, who met with an acci dent by the falling in of a drive, died a few days ago. He was, we understand, sensible to the last. He was a fine young man, a native of the United States. The injuries he sustained were of an internal character. — Nashville Times. What do you think (queries the vagrant re porter of the Tootooomba Chronicle) would be the practical result upon the financial position of the colony if every male adult in Queensland were to enter into a solemn compact and agree ment never to buy, sell, use, or give away any intoxicating liquor of any description for a period of two years ? The idea was suggested to me the other day by a very intelligent friend, and I have been thinking of it ever since. It strikes me that a plan of this sort would be far more effectual towards restoring our dilapidated finances than our present tinkering mode of legislation. Now, I openly confess I like a glass of grog a 9 well as any man ; at the same time, I should be perfectly ready and willing to make one to test the result if I could only con vince the public that the experiment was worth trying. We perceive, by a paragraph in the Sydney Morning Herald, that Mr. Walter Hampson Cooper, who for several years was connected with thft Brisbane press, is appearing, or rather about to appear, as a dramatic author. The paper before quoted says:—" A comedy, bear ing the title of ' Colonial Experience,' and pro fessedly delineating some peculiar phases of Australian every day life, is now in rehearsal at the Victoria Theatre, where it will be produced in a few days. It is in three acts, the whole of the action being distributed among eleven characters. Of these the most prominent are: —Captain Versatile Fluent, a clever swindler, who manages to live very comfortably on his wits ; Peter Shrivel, an old clerk ; Matthew Grudge, an avaricious old scoundrel; Joseph Grudge, who is a rather fast repre sentative of young Australia; Alfred Ark wright, the hero, who is a new chum ; Helen, a rich heiress, niece to Grudge; and Julia, an affected young lady, who thinks Captain Fluent a very pattern of gentility and good breeding. Judging from a synopsis of the plot and charac ters, which has been submitted to us, we should think this comedy is likely to seoure a fair share of the popular favor." Mr. Cooper is a young man of undoubted talent, and we trust his present venture will be a successful one. i Many of our readers will remember an extrava- ] ganza written by him, and produced at the Victoria Theatre in Mr. Vinson's time, which was tolerably successful. Return of the out-door relief as administered by the Board of Relief, for the week ending July 2:—51 widows; 121 children; infirm through old age, 4 men, 9 women ; wives whose husbands are in gaol, 1 woman, 4 children; deserted wives, 14 women, 23 children; families relieved on account of sickness, 40 men, 40 women, 137 children ; families relieved—father seeking work up country, 39 women, 112 chil dren ; temporary relief to families when father is out of employment, 12 men, 18 women, 50 children. Total, 56 men, 166 women, 477 chil-I dren.

Taroom... Banana... Nebo ... Springeure

Royds. ... 12 ... 0 ... 0 ... 13

Hodgson. ... 5 ... 4 ... 0 ... 25